Sandra Dee Out West
This article appeared in the March 1960 issue of Seventeen
Magazine
"All the stories I read exaggerate the things they say about
me," states Sandra Dee; "Everything is bigger and better
looking and I make more money. But I can't complain.
They only exaggerate the nice things." At seventeen Alexandra
Douvan, or Sandra Dee as she is professionally known, is a slim,
striking blonde with brown eyes, appealing without being openly
warm, an unusual combination of sophistication and youth. Few
stars are as candid and direct in their statements.
"I never wanted to be a movie star," Sandra says. "Don't get
me wrong, I love movie stars. In fact, I used to pretend that I was
Janet Leigh and that I married Tony Curtis. I also thought Debbie
Reynolds was just wonderful. I think I was something like eight
years old. Even now when I see pictures made by Janet Leigh and
Tony Curtis I get excited. In the early days if I'd ever seen them
in person I'd probably have dropped dead. It's Just that when it
happens to you, you don't seem any different and you can't understand
why other people think you should be
.
"My mother's a doll. She loves me and it shows a mile. I'm not like that.
I'm not affectionate at all. Some of my relatives think
I'm the biggest snob because I just can't kiss someone I haven't
seen in ten years and all of a sudden, there they are and they suddenly get affectionate. They never kissed me before but now, all of
a sudden, wham!
"I love to talk," sighs Sandra Dee, "I can't describe a movie that
I'm in, or a story I've read, but I love to talk about anything at all.
I began talking when I was six months old, according to my family.
By the time I was a year old, I put sentences together and even
began to sing. When I was a year and a half, my family thought it
would be wonderful fun if I sang at church. We're Russian, Greek
orthodox. I got up and sang—I don't remember, of course, although
I have a very good memory—but I wouldn't stop. After I sang all the
songs I knew, both alone and with the choir, I ran up front again
and began taking off clothes. I took my shoes off, then I took my
socks off, I started taking my dress off before they finally ran out
and carried me off." Sandra hardly pauses for breath, then rushes on.
"We lived in Bayonne, New Jersey, for a while, that's where
my family is from, and then we moved to Manhasset, Long Island.
When we moved to Manhasset, I was the most miserable thing you
ever saw. I was dressed in frills and laces and was just the opposite
of all the other kids in the neighborhood. They were all tomboys.
I changed over as soon as I could, but those weeks were the worst
ones of my life. I was an only child and terribly lonesome so I loved
playing with the other kids in kindergarten. But my mother couldn't
bear to be separated from me. She used to get jobs around school
just to be near me. They had to put a curtain over the window in
the kindergarten door so she couldn't watch me. She used to stand
there and just cry. She would take me to school and was afraid to
let me out of her sight. I couldn't stand it. I was never alone. Now
I'm rebelling, I guess," she says, thoughtfully, slowing up for a moment, "because I like to eat alone. From twelve to one I'm alone in
my dressing room. I remember my mother used to have the kids
from all over the block in the kitchen giving them milk and cookies.
"I used to be the biggest mouth in school," she adds with candor.
"They were always writing notes home to my parents. I never
stopped talking in class. I was a little bit of a flirt too, but I never
let it go too far."
Sandra's step-father (her mother was divorced and remarried
when she was six) was in the real estate business. Because of his
work, they moved around a great deal; somehow she never developed
lasting friendships. "I never had a real girl friend," Sandra says
with a light laugh. "When we moved to Manhattan, I went to a
public school, but the kids there didn't have anything to do with me;
they all went around in cliques. I only went there for a couple of
months, but I kept bringing notes to the
principal that I was sick all the
time. He knew I wasn't sick, I was
working by then, and it didn't make
much sense. After a couple of
months I switched over to Professional Children's School and didn't
have any more trouble."
Sandra found herself in show
business before she found herself in
her teens. "The first thing I ever
did," she says, "was a television
show. A lot of people get this mixed
up, but that's the way it was. I was
walking .through the NBC building
and a man stopped me and asked if
I'd ever done television. I said
'Sure!' I'd never even seen the inside of a stage. He booked me without a reading on a Vaughn Monroe
TV show. After that I retired for a
year.
"Then at school one day, a girl
was telling me about a fashion show
audition that she had gone to. She
was too small, she said. So I decided that I'd go and see if they
wanted me. I went up and gave
them my father's name as my agent.
I didn't tell them he was my father
and they booked me. And that was
the way the modeling started. I got
the job and when I told my father
about it he let me do it because I
had promised and because it was a
Girl Scout show." Before Sandra
knew it, she was signed and modeling regularly. "I had more of a figure then than I have now," she
says ruefully, looking down at her
slim ninety-nine pound form, five
feet, four inches tall. "I weighed
more and was rounded out and
looked very good. I used to model
preteens Now i think I need nose
lifts and face lifts and everything.
I hate the way I look!"
She continues, "After a while
would get television commercials
and then one thing leads to another,
small roles in dramatic shows. You
get around, get to know people, talk
to them and things just happen. By
the end of the first year I wasn't
so satisfied by modeling. I don't
think anybody really likes to model.
It's a wonderful thing, being able
to say you're a model. You're a sort
of symbol. A lot of people do it to
get into other things, like TV and
the movies and the stage. To be
honest, in the beginning it was just
what I thought. It seemed a very
glamorous, exciting job with ex
pensive clothes; this is not true
when you stand under the hot lights
in a hot coat in August or with pins
sticking in your side and a dozen
other tricks that must never show
but that are very uncomfortable. I
guess the best time I ever had mod
eling was on location for SEVENTEEN.
I remember we went to Boston an
it was a lot of fun.
"Later I found when you said
you were a model, people in show
business looked down on you. They
figured you couldn't act worth
darn. I will say that modeling
taught me some pretty good discipline, like not being late and
everything, and I'm glad I had it,
but I'm through with it now. Actu
ally, I'll never know how I made
the movies. I had no training. I have
never done any really big televi
sion. I was
a clothes horse, period. And at the
time l was signed up, I wasn't even
that any more. Too skinny. My face
was good photographically, but I
couldn't do anything. Even SEVENTEEN'S clothes were too big for me.
I was just a wreck.
"I kept trying for acting parts
though. Once I auditioned for a
play and was given the part, that
of a much older girl. When I went
home and told my father about it,
he wouldn't let me do it because
he said I was too young and it
wouldn't be fair to the producer or
the director for me even to try. It
was right after that he got sick.
"Father was very close to all of
us," Sandra goes on in a subdued
voice. "We all leaned on him completely. He wanted me to go into
show business if that was what I
wanted, but he made me know that
the family always came first. He
would love what's happened to me,
I know, for after a while he got terribly proud. The more I did in television the prouder he was of me.
I guess he realized I wasn't going
to become any different because if
he had thought I was, he would
have stopped me right then.
"I think he was mainly afraid of
my becoming too high-hat I guess
you'd call it. He knew that little
things wouldn't faze me too much
because at home we had a fair
amount of security. Yet every time
he gave me something or we did
something new for the first time
together, it was always a wonderful surprise and I got very excited.
I guess he didn't want me ever to
lose that excitement, and the fun. I
guess he didn't want me to be just
interested in make-up and clothes.
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